EDWARDSBURG — It might seem a little self-important to write an editorial about a publication I helped produce. But when I got my hands on a copy of the special edition magazine the Leader Publication Editorial staff produced to commemorate the Edwardsburg football 2018 season and state championship I couldn’t help but feel some pride. Not just pride for our product, but for a community that got to experience a series of firsts.

Monday was a proud day for not only Leader Publications, but for the whole of the Edwardsburg community as the commemorative magazine for the 2018 season and state championship finally came into the hands of proud parents and members of the community. “One team, one town, one title,” as the magazine is named, is filled with a week by week look at the season, player highlights and countless photos from home and away games. Action shots and headshots, statistics from games and firsthand accounts from Leader’s sports reporter, Scott Novak, can take any reader back to the season that changed history for Edwardsburg athletics.

Now the history is sealed for Edwardsburg, done up in a professionally made magazine that’s more like neat and trim photo album. I tell the story of how one special group of Edwardsburg teens rose above and beyond the expectations of their community and their competitors to carve their names on the tablet of state champions.

Head coach Kevin Bartz was vocal about his worry after winning the championship that his boys might fall under the impression that they’d peaked, or that they will look back 20 years down the road and feel the 2018 state championship was the biggest moment of their lives. But Bartz was also vocal about his belief that his role as a coach is not just to train his players for success on the field, but success in life. His players will go on to be college students, maybe college athletes, business owners, husbands and fathers, or perhaps coaches themselves one day.

The players lives will certainly not peak with the championship, but they will have the opportunity to go back and look in one place at a special part of their own life story. The chapter where it crossed with the stories 33 guys, a few coaches and a proud town that finally gets to see the Eddie mascot as the symbol of a champion.

Sure, the editorial staff that worked on the commemorative magazine is proud of our work. But more so we’re proud that we can help share the story of a deserving community, and share it in a way that’s specific to the players and the town they represented on Ford field and all the other fields they fought through to get there.

Since the magazine was released, over 190 copies of the magazine have been sold, many more of which are expected to sell. For $2.95 parents, coaches, teachers, students and peers can have a copy. Stacks of the commemorative magazine are waiting at the Leader Publications office, located at 217 N. 4th Street in Niles.

ADAM DROSCHA is a reporter for Leader Publications and writer for Michiana Life and South Bend Life Magazines. He can be reached by adam.droscha@leaderpub.com or (517) 575-9200.